Eternal Unjust
by Icicle Raindream
Summary: There are some things in life that you just have to accept...and live with.


Eternal Unjust

By: Icicle Raindream

Disclaimer: I am not copyrighted to anything importantly connected with Gundam Wing or its universe, therefore I make no profit off this.

Notes: This was just a weird idea that popped into my head a LONG time ago. I didn't have enough guts to finish it till now, and this is the end product. If you liked it, drop me a line, okay? You can blame the philosophic writings of Saint Augustine and the music of Hayami Shou and Lucifer (or "Aucifer", as the Japanese pronounce it) for this crazy stuff. The music puts you in a strange mood and the philosophy of Augustine makes you think too much about religion and God. So, this is probably a pretty scary combination, all right here for you to read!! "^-^" (Oh, yeah…I know that the title doesn't make too much sense as it is, but maybe after you read the fic it will. I thought it sounded cool.) I hope you enjoy! Drop me a line!

They stood in front of me like the gates of hell. It was the only way in.

I pushed through the heavy oak doors and stepped inside the building, the darkness mixed with tiny trickles of moonlight streaming in through the cracks of wood. This place had been deserted for too many years.

I walked slowly, unsure of what to expect as my shoes echoed throughout the desolate room. I could see the outline of his body on the floor in front of me, lying before the altar as if to be judged by a higher presence. My heart pounded through my ears, my throat dry. I didn't understand why he would pick this place.

I neared his form and stepped over it. I sat down on the steps and just stared at him. 

What was I waiting for? Condemnation?

He looked up at me with those round blue eyes.

The dam burst inside me, the salty liquid building until it lined my eyes, brimming with lost hope and grief and last chances as I reached forward, grabbed him, and desperately cradled his lanky form awkwardly in my lap. My fingers clutched the black material of his clothes as if I was afraid he was going to slip away and melt into the wooden floor, to be soaked up by the surface of the world and never again allowed to be seen by others. It had been far too long a time since I had seen him; eternity without him wouldn't be fair. Not to one who had risked her life all on account of him.

The black expanse of his pupil was rimmed with dark blue; a sweep of ebony lashes against his cheek as he blinked. The skin tone of his face was pale in contrast to my hand, which I placed gently on his cheek to keep his head from lolling to the side as he blinked about the room he was in, apparently disoriented and confused. The white of his collar was stained with mud and dirt. His hand raised, a shaking finger pointed toward the ceiling. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. The hand fell and he slipped it around my waist.

I pulled his body to me; held his warmth up against me as I wrapped a death grip around his waist in return, hugging his face to my chest. His body suddenly seemed small as he curled into my lap and buried his face in my shirt. The shaking came before the tears did.

But I held him as he cried, I held and rocked him as his nightmares from the war poured out of him and drenched my clothes. I was more than willing to allow him to tarnish my clothes with his war demons than to let them stay inside him and eat him alive. He couldn't live like that--no one could--and he shouldn't be made to suffer any longer.

And he wouldn't. Not after everything he had done to himself. The crying was his unspoken apology to me, I knew it. His self-baptism of all his sins.

He shifted, slipping his arms all the way around me, our roles ironically reversed as he held me to him. My hand left his face to play with his dark hair; fingered the end of his braid. I rubbed small circles into his back as his tears slipped down my neck, and I couldn't hold it in. My tears fell onto his shoulder as we each tried to comfort the other. His sobs were loud and piercing in my ears even as I echoed them with fervor.

And I tried to console him, to hold him with all my might, to keep him from slipping away from me, but as fate took him out of my hands I could only watch as his body dropped from mine. The tear streaks on his face glittered in the dim light of the lamps overhead, where the fans slowly spun with silent movements as he lay on his back on the floor. Through all his insanity there had been one moment where he had recognized who I was and acknowledged me as the person he wanted, and I stood with shaky knees, sniffling and wiping my tears away. It was too late for him, I knew it now. The surface of the world was opening up with only one invitation. For a jaded soul who had lost its way.

His eyes looked up at me again as I stepped over his body, sprawled on the floor of the aisle, one hand clutching at the outside rim of a pew. The ebony lashes swept across his cheek as he blinked again, and my ears caught a cold whisper of remorse as it floated through the air.

"Hilde…"

I shook my head and began to walk. I passed row after row of pews, my feet shuffling against the thin maroon carpet of the aisle until I stopped, facing them. They stood in front of me like the gates of hell. It was the only way out.

I pushed through the heavy oak doors and stepped outside into the midnight air. The trees rustled in the wind as it blew and I walked down the desolate alley alone, headed to a destination my mind couldn't think of at the moment. My brain was an obscure feeling inside my head, and I wasn't functioning like I should have been. But that was to be expected. He'd gotten his wish.

Halfway down the road I stopped and faced the broken down structure as the moon sighed its yellow light from above on the church. I took in a breath of sharp autumn air.

"Good-bye, Duo."

I turned and began my trek home again. The trees rustled my name in reply, hiding themselves within his voice, embedding it into my soul as they whistled their final tune of gratitude.

Duo's joyous laughter filled my ears. He'd always said that death was a release, and perhaps the church had redeemed his soul in exchange for mine.

He was gone and I was alone. Empty.

But I guess sometimes there are parts of life that aren't fair.

And now I had eternity to think about that. 


End file.
